So glad you stopped by!
“The Prog Basket” is an extensive collection of recipes researched and tested by my aunt, Margaret Lou Shaver, over a period of more than a decade. These ‘receipts’, as they were historically known, are pieces of culinary Canadian history, and for my aunt, they were a gastronomic adventure.
When she began researching Canadian cuisine from days of yore, she could scarcely have imagined the wealth of material she discovered. The recipes and information gleaned spanned as far back as the 1700’s and provided a window into the times and social context in which the original recipe writer lived.
Most charmingly, these old recipes contained often very cryptic measurements:
“Butter the size of a walnut”
“A wine glass of brandy’
“15 cents worth of cocoanut”
“A little ginger”
“A pottle of strawberries”
“A teacupful of sugar”
These odd methods of measuring were often followed by extremely vague instructions and methodology for assembling the ingredients.
My dear aunt, using her knowledge and training as a home economist at the Macdonald Institute at the University of Guelph, carefully deciphered these recipes, tested them, and paired them with cooking tidbits and preparation advice from yesteryear. For her, this truly was a labour of love.
In 2019, “Margie Lou” passed away after a brave battle with ovarian cancer. It was always her goal to have the comprehensive cookbook that she had compiled published and shared as a major record of Canada’s culinary past, and in her will, the cookbook that she had tirelessly worked on for years was left to me, in the hopes that I would do just that.
And so I’m starting here, with this website, and with a sampling of some of these archival recipes. Some of these wonderful recipes have evolved, and remain a part of Canadian cuisine today; others have all but disappeared, and truly deserve to be revived. The cookbook that Margie Lou dreamed of will come in time, but for now let’s explore the past for a bit, and savour and enjoy.
Patricia Shaver
about the recipes
You’ll see that each of the recipes begins with a historical “receipt”, or the original recipe, and you’ll see the year that it was written (most are written in the 1800’s and early 1900’s). Some of these are in a cryptic “shorthand”, some contain spelling mistakes, and some contain instructions that are quite unclear! Sometimes, there are multiple, very similar or identical recipes taken from different recipe books that were published in different years, and in different parts of Canada. Fascinating stuff!
Following the original historical recipe are the tried and tested recipe ingredients, along with detailed instructions for preparation, the yield, and my aunt’s assessment of the flavour and texture of the dish.
And following the updated version of the recipe there are often some historical “tips and tricks” that relate to the recipe at hand. Perhaps it’s what to pair with fried cucumbers, or how to choose a ham, or how to serve a cold soup. Again, really interesting stuff!
I am certainly not the cook that my aunt was, but over the years I have come to enjoy cooking and am regularly trying out new recipes. I, myself, eat a gluten-free diet, and so as I’ve prepared the recipes for photography, any recipe containing all-purpose flour I have substituted with 1:1 gluten free baking flour. I have made note in the recipe if the substitution was successful.
Click here for a write-up that appeared in the Hamilton Spectator and Ancaster News in September 2023.
the prog basket 